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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Tommy's Take on Anointed: Mantle of the Gods

Dark Skull Studios isn’t new to pen and paper RPGs…but they
do have a brand new RPG called Anointed: Mantle of the Gods. In a Bronze Age
setting, tribes are being hunted by demons and monsters…and only the champions
of the Gods can rise to the occasion. The Anointed carry the mantles of their
Gods (see how that works?) against those that would destroy their people.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: The book is available at RPGNow in PDF
($9.95) and print ($14.95), and is 124 pages. The book opens with a short
fiction piece designed to unfold the world before the readers.

A lot of games encourage character creation as a group, but
this book practically demands it. Why? Because the players have to create their
God and their tribe in addition to their character. (To avoid potential
intergroup conflict, everyone is assumed to serve the same God, because
religion can get hairy.) You need to select the God’s domains, and a handful
are provided, but you are probably going to either have to make up some of your
own or reference the New Gods of Mankind book for more domains, as the PCs’ God
should have three. Once the domains are in place, the God’s commandments must
be defined as well.

Once the God is created, the Tribe is…and this directly
impacts the PCs just as the God does. For instance, a PC from a Hunting Tribe
may be skilled at Tracking or Stealth, while one from a Farming Tribe may be
skilled at Herbalism or Animal Handling, etc. Once you get the Tribe defined
(including location, population and so on), then you sit down and create the
Heroes, as defined by the Gods and Tribes.

Each character has three attributes (Body, Mind and Spirit),
and a d6, d8 and d10 to assign to each of them. They also have Speed, Health,
Defense and Resistance. The first two are preset and the last two are defined
by a combination of Body & Mind and Body & Spirit respectively. Characters
have six skills, with one at d8, two at d6 and three at d4 (in addition to the
skill you get from belonging to the Tribe). Next, you get a Power based off of
one of your God’s Domains. Your Hero might be able to create Ice Daggers, Heal
or cause Earthquakes, for instance. Each Domain has four powers listed, so
between three Domains, you can get a decent spread of powers so that the
Tribe’s Heroes don’t all feel the same. Your Hero gets up to three Advantages
(so long as you take an equal number of Disadvantages). Advantages include
Eagle Eye, Lock-Master and Intimidating, while Disadvantages include Brute Mind
(you may be cunning, but not “smart” in the classic sense), Disfigured and
Kleptomania. Heroes also have Favor, which is a mechanical representation of
their God’s favor (of course). To simplify things, six Templates are provided
for fast generation or inspiration.

The core mechanic involves rolling a small pool of what is
typically an attribute die and a skill die and comparing the result to a Target
Number (default is 4, but harder and easier tasks have different target
numbers), with some tasks requiring multiple successes. Heroes can use Favor to
modify these rolls, adding a d12 to their pool, add a d12 as a modifier to
their highest die (depending on whether they need multiple successes or a
higher roll), add dice to another Hero’s pool, Heal or activate their powers. If
a Hero rolls a d12 on one of those Favor dice, he gets full blown Divine
Intervention (in the form of an automatic success and generally something
flashy from his God).

The rules cover a wide range of situations, from combat to haggling
to hunting and so on, and discusses the use of each skill in detail.

The Powers Chapter covers the available powers in detail as
well, starting with the abilities that all of The Anointed share, such as
seeing spirits and demons, spotting other Anointed and what amounts to an
exorcism. From there, each of the powers mentioned early in the book get
explained, with full game effects and Favor costs. While the explanations of
the powers are great, where this chapter really shines is the breakdown of how
to make, and assign costs to, your own powers. It’s reminiscent of Cinematic
Unisystem’s spell creation system, and I mean that in a very good way.

Combat assumes that you will use grids and minis (not
surprising as Dark Skull Studios has their own line of printable figures), and
each character is allowed to move, take a combat action and take a free action
on each turn. In an interesting break from a lot of games, Initiative is based
on Mind, rather than Body. Attack rolls are made against the opponent’s Defense
and weapon damage is rolled against Resistance, with each success counting as a
point of damage. One interesting rule says that if maximum damage is rolled on
the weapon’s damage die, then the force of the impact actually breaks the
weapon.

Between chapters five and six, we get a great painting
showing the setting’s cosmology.

Chapter six covers trade and equipment, going around the
world showing what kinds of exports are produced in each region, as well as a
section discussing trade with each of the other races (like Sylphs, Gnomes and
Undines).

The book ends with a solo adventure that is designed to
allow the GM to play through and familiarize themselves with the setting,
Choose Your Own Adventure style.

WHAT WORKS: For a game predicated on the notion that every
PC is going to belong to the same tribe, be the follower of the same God and
only have three attributes, there are enough options to make each Anointed feel
completely unique. The Powers creation system is really great, as the
guidelines combined with examples given make for an impressive addition to the
rules. Lastly, the book is absolutely gorgeous.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: Small editing bits (words being repeated
side by side that were missed by proofreaders, at least one instance of
improper punctuation, etc.). There is no bestiary, aside from picking through
the solo adventure for statblocks (such as for Salamander slavers). A book
essentially meant to launch a new line shouldn’t be referencing books in the
previous line in anything but the most loosest manner…but it really feels like
you’ll want to have extra books from the New Gods of Mankind line on hand for
Domains and a bestiary.

CONCLUSION: Anointed has a ton of promise, but feels like it
relies a bit too much on familiarity with the New Gods of Mankind game line,
which is unfortunate because it can be easily missed that this game is
connected to that series. Now, if you picked up books in that line but felt
that the scope was a bit more than you wanted to deal with, then this is
perfect. The character options are all simple but robust, which is right in my
comfort zone. I particularly like the Powers, because you WILL want to make
more powers, either because the PCs want something that’s not covered in the
book, or you will want NPC Anointed to have Powers not listed there. With
tighter editing, better organization and an actual bestiary (rather than
scattered stat blocks in the solo adventure), this could have been a GREAT
product, rather than a really good one.